


A Thousand Steps

by riyku



Series: Skam Sunday [3]
Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 11:31:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10966329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riyku/pseuds/riyku
Summary: There are about a hundred reasons why this is a bad idea and one reason why it's a great one.





	A Thousand Steps

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lavishsqualor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavishsqualor/gifts).



> for my darling squal, for more reasons than there is room here to recount. your prompt mighta gotten a little lost somewhere in here. mea culpa. mea maxima culpa.
> 
> many, many thanks to tebtosca, my fairy godmother, for letting me hijack her sunday afternoon. again.

"We should move in together." Even's dazed, smiling, breathing fast with his fingers still tangled in Isak's hair. A mark is blooming in the ditch of his elbow where Isak bit down a fraction too hard and Isak presses his thumb against it. Red to white to red. 

Isak laughs, knows better than to believe anything coming out of Even's mouth right now. Just like you shouldn't believe a guy when he asks you to marry him a minute after you've sucked his brains out through his dick. So, yeah, he laughs and maybe Even looks a touch offended, and Isak crawls up Even's body, kisses him although he probably should have washed his mouth out first. Grinds down on Even's dick until he's ready to go again and doesn't even bitch about how the spunk spotted sheets glue to his skin afterward.

\- - -

"We should move in together."

The rest of the apartment is asleep and the kitchen is bright, shitty pop music playing on the radio and the detritus from breakfast-making clogging every surface. Even is feeding Isak pancakes and kissing strawberries into his mouth, touching his face with sticky fingers. 

"Seriously?" Isak asks, and props a hip against the counter, crosses his arms and raises his eyebrows. 

"Of course," Even says, "I'm always serious." He's talking around a full mouth and the next time Isak kisses him he's going to taste like nutella. He dances toward Isak, loaded fork in hand, bare feet slapping on the floor. He woke up jittery this morning. It happens.

There are about a hundred reasons why this is a bad idea and one reason why it's a great one, and that reason begins and ends with _Even._

"Okay," Isak says, and shrugs like it's nothing. Like it isn't everything. Like it doesn't feel as if something enormous has just broken loose in his chest.

The fork clatters into the sink and Even lifts him onto the counter, fits himself between Isak's spread knees and grins up at him, outshines the light pouring in through the window. Smiling so big that his eyes squint nearly shut and the blue in them disappears, and Isak fucking lives for moments like these.

\- - -

The walls are too thin in the first apartment the agent shows them. The light isn't right. The shower isn't big enough to fit both of them at the same time, something which Even points out to the agent in a matter-of-fact sorta way and Isak blushes a color darker than his snapback every time he meets her eyes.

The commute from the second place to school is too long. It's a basement apartment and the light still isn't right. The floor is scuffed, everything smells a little like stale mildew and Even lights up when Isak hooks their pinky fingers together as they walk from bedroom to living room to kitchen and back to bedroom. Isak's usually not that into public displays around people he's not familiar with, but this lady already knows they like to fuck in the shower, so it hardly matters.

The next place is about a thousand stairs up. Street noise rises from below and the bedroom is so tiny it can barely house Even's four guitars, but it has a windowsill with a ledge that's wide enough for two boys to sit, long legs and all. Besides, Even has an inclination for the number three, and Isak has an inclination for Even. 

"This was when I finally figured it out," Even says, leaning back in the window seat and arranging his feet between Isak's. "The first time you came back to my house with me. I knew."

In the other room, the agent is on the phone to the landlord, and in this one, Isak is feeling so young, trying to mask his nervous excitement behind logistics like who's gonna drive the moving van. "What did you know?" Isak says.

"Do you really have to ask?"

The memory of the afternoon had been the fuel for every one of Isak's jerk-off fantasies and fairytale daydreams for days after. The place he'd gone to over and over whenever the doubt got too big or the immutable fact of Even felt too real.

"No," Isak tells him. "I don't."

\- - -

Their friends have left, off to get wasted somewhere else for the night, and Isak is sitting on the floor of their new living room with Even in front of him. Their knees touch and Even has his hands spread on Isak's thighs, fingers playing with his inseams.

A few boxes, some crates, clothes jammed into trash bags. The loveseat from Even's old room and Isak's mattress. There hadn't been much to move, but Isak's legs ache from it and his shoulder feels out of whack. Those thousand fucking stairs. 

He looks around at the clutter of their lives combined and it's overwhelming for a second, like a wave about to pull him under, but then Even leans in and presses their noses together and doesn't say a word. Just stays that way for a while.

\- - -

Noora brings them a cactus that Even overwaters and kills almost upon arrival, and Isak calls him cactus killer for a week. Eskild hands over a cookbook full of recipes for two, complete with a list of aphrodisiac foods he's written on the inside cover, tells him to go for oysters and chocolate, but not both at once.

Isak screws up making pasta three consecutive times in a row, sits across from Even and watches him crunch his way through it, drown each bite with a swallow of beer he probably shouldn't have, then tell him that he would be safer to stick to stuff that comes out of boxes and cheese toasties. Forget about the rosemary.

"Besides," Even says, choking down the last bite and pushing his plate away like it's scored him some kinda victory, "I'm the one who cooks for you."

"Is that right?" Isak says, sarcasm threaded through it. "I can take care of myself."

Even goes very still and his eyes become very dark and he curls a thoughtful tongue around his canine before saying, "Yeah, but you shouldn't have to. Not while I'm here."

\- - -

All of their friends are there, the girls in nice dresses and even Jonas has swapped out his t-shirt for a button down. There's wine, fancy cheese and fruit that Even bought special and the whole thing feels so grown up. A glimpse into what Isak's life might look like ten years from now.

Even is making a constant circuit around the room, refilling glasses and kissing everyone on the cheek, the funny, reckless kid Isak fell in love with peeking through the cracks of the charming guy Isak thought he was at first. Isak keeps catching Even staring, and kinda loves the way Even doesn't bother to stop when he's caught.

"Are you happy?" Eskild asks low, crossing his legs toward Isak and placing a light hand on his knee. "Because you can always come back. I can kick Noora out of your room so fast."

"So long as he keeps wearing pants in public, I'm cool with it," Isak says just as low, and Eskild squeezes his leg.

Eva is looking at Even like she wants to eat him up and Eskild is looking at him like he wants to eat him out and Magnus is looking at him like he just wants to be him, and that's when it hits Isak.

Later, when everyone has left and they're in the kitchen dealing with the aftermath, Isak crooks his elbow around Even's neck, pulls him down and says, "You belong to them now. You're one of us."

Even raises his eyebrows and winds his arms around Isak's middle. "They're your friends and they love you. I'm part of the deal since I’m yours."

Heat flashes across Isak's chest and his stomach is dropping and he hadn't thought it was possible to fall any further, and yet. "Say that again."

"I'm yours," Even says against his mouth. 

He proves it with a warm tongue pried between Isak's lips, huge hands on Isak's ass pulling him up and in until his toes are hardly touching the ground.

\- - -

Two hours late and no phone call. Creeping up on three and Even doesn't disappear like this. Not anymore. There's a reason. No one's heard from him and there are probably a dozen reasons. Logic says that Even will be home soon, Isak's gut says he should grab one of Even's sweatshirts and a spare set of shoes and start looking for him.

He's about to do just that when he hears the rasp of the key in the lock and then it's relief like a living, breathing thing populating the space between Isak's cells. 

Even's mouth is running before the door is closed and his shoes are off, keeps going as he kisses him hello, pink cheeked and panting from the walk up the stairs, so strikingly beautiful Isak can hardly breathe. Isak's heart beats differently just for being near him.

His phone died because of course it did. He'd been taking photos of this street art he'd tripped across on the way home, and then he wanted to stop at the shop and pick up those chips Isak likes so well, and they had these cherries that are shaped like hearts. "Just look at them," Even says, "They're so red and sweet, and here, the flowers are starting to bloom in the park." He tucks a blue one behind one of Isak's ears, fusses with it to get it to sit straight.

"I thought," Isak starts then stops, as Even plugs in his phone and thumbs through his messages. 

"You thought I wasn't coming back." Even takes Isak by the wrist, places his hand on his chest, directly over his heart. "Forever. Okay?"

Isak's a realist. There will come a day when Even doesn’t come home, when all of his best intentions make a hairpin turn, but right now Even's heart is pounding against his palm. 

Forever doesn't exist. Except maybe it could.

\--end

thanks for reading!


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